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Lets just say that humans discover intelligent life on other planet. The life form there is currently at a technological level comparable to Industrial Era on our planet.

This new life form however similar to humans lives on a different scale of time. For instance we live for about 80 yrs. They live for a meager 30. Naturally this means that they are very fast at our scales of time. We need to establish contact with them. But due to their very different scale of time it becomes difficult to communicate. What are solutions to this strange problem.

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    $\begingroup$ Just because an organism has a shorter lifespan doesn't mean the communication becomes impossible. Dogs, for example - they only live for 10-20 years, but we can communicate just fine (to a certain extent) $\endgroup$
    – Chromane
    May 17, 2018 at 2:55
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    $\begingroup$ I don't see any problems here. Pets regularly live for a significantly shorter time than their owners and communication exists.. $\endgroup$
    – Aify
    May 17, 2018 at 2:57
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    $\begingroup$ On the other hand, humans live for 60-80 years and it's not unusual that they can't communicate well with each other. $\endgroup$
    – The Square-Cube Law
    May 17, 2018 at 2:59
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    $\begingroup$ This question only makes sense if their lifespans are equivalent to our own but their space-time reference frame moves more quickly than ours (they live 80 years on their world, but it's only 30 years to us. They look like they're moving almost 3X faster than we do). Is that what you're asking? $\endgroup$
    – JBH
    May 17, 2018 at 5:33
  • $\begingroup$ If that other planet is not in our solar system and your people did not discover a means for FTL communication, then each message will take at least half a human lifetime to deliver. On that scale, the speed difference between their perceptions does not matter. $\endgroup$
    – Real Subtle
    May 17, 2018 at 7:00

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So they operate at (80/30)=2.66666666667 our speed?

People typically talk at 150 words per minute

We need someone to talk at (2.66666666667*150)= 400 words a minute

If we can get to 7 words a second (420 a minute) we can communicate

So some human beings are just incredibly fast talkers. 2.6 isn't too fast of a gap. All we have to do as an advanced civilization is to just send the proper representatives. Someone like John Moschitta Jr. can speak at 11 words per second at maximum rate, easily clearing the requirement. A quick youtube search reveals this guy missing your requirements by 3 seconds. It shouldn't be hard to implement for prepared speeches.

However, dialog about complex issues should be done in writing. Preferably lengthy detailed documents otherwise a lot of misunderstandings can happen quickly.

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    $\begingroup$ ...perhaps you mean 11 words per second? 11 per minute seems to be heading the wrong way :) It would also help that people can understand speech with words spaced somewhat slower than typical, so even if it would be annoying there's probably more overlap between fastest of one and slowest of the other, that people are capable if not comfortable communicating in. $\endgroup$
    – Megha
    May 20, 2018 at 3:54
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Humans live for 80 years average, but only in some places, we communicate with countries easily who's average lifespan is much less, and the disparity was much greater in the past when life expectancy in many places was much less.

So this disparity is not a communication barrier, any more than a 90 year old talking to his great great grandchildren would be.

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Their wouldn't

We can communicate with other animals who live on a completely different time scale, rats, dogs, cats, etc...

BUT...

You could have this done by having creatures process information so fast when compared to humans that listening to humans in a pain because their just so slow. That's really the only way I can see this working, and to communicate with a creature like that basically what you would need to do is record yourself talking then play it fast, then record them talking and slow it down for you, or just write everything down.

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